


The Right Decision

by clare_dragonfly



Category: Defiance (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: fandomaid, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clare_dragonfly/pseuds/clare_dragonfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amanda makes a different choice and accepts Connor's offer to go to New York with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Right Decision

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misura](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/gifts).



> For misura's fandomaid request.

Amanda let out a long, slow breath. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t—and yet. “This is a real job? What you’re offering me? It’s a position that’s open, and you can just get me into it?”

“Of course.” Connor took her hands. “What else would it be?”

She shook her head, still not looking at his face. “A made-up position. Something you created just to give your—to give me an excuse.” She couldn’t say _girlfriend_. Not yet. However much her traitorous heart wanted it to be true. “A figurehead. I make a terrible figurehead, Connor.”

He let out a soft breath, a sound she knew very well: it was a laugh, but he wasn’t laughing at her. He was laughing at the world. Sometimes it was them against the world. “I know better than to offer you a position like that. No, it’s a real job, and it’s open. There hasn’t been a governor before, but we need one. And you’re a wonderful leader. You know that.” His hands and his voice tightened simultaneously, hopeful.

She looked up and into his sweet eyes, the eyes of a man who had always cared for her before anything else. “Yes. All right. I’ll do it. I’ll leave Defiance.”

—

Preparations for leaving took a surprisingly short time—but of course, if she took too long she’d change her mind, and the longer she wasn’t working for E-Rep, the longer they had to move in on Defiance. She appointed Nolan interim mayor (ignoring his complaints and those of the council—there was an election soon anyway) and warned Rafe McCawley to keep an eye on his gulanite. She might be leaving this town, but she was going to do her damnedest to protect it. She was leaving it to protect it.

And for Connor. But she didn’t want to think about that part. Not yet.

Kenya was furious, of course, but the nice thing about sisters is that they always forgive each other. Even if they weren’t speaking at the moment. Amanda preferred not speaking to trying to convince her to stay, because if anyone could convince her to stay, it would be Kenya. And she didn’t want to see Kenya and Connor get in a fight.

All told, it was two days. Two days between Connor asking her to come to New York with him and them leaving together in an Earth Republic transport. Two final days in her town.

But when she took her seat beside Connor in the back of the transport and his hand crept over the middle of the bench to rest atop hers, she knew the days to come would be even better.

—

“Why, Amanda?” Connor whispered as he settled into the bed, resting his head on her naked shoulder. “Why now? Why not sooner?”

She stroked his hair back from his face. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about this.”

“I never agreed to that,” he said, placing one hand on her hip.

She shook her head. “I don’t have any reasons, Connor. Not good ones.”

“Of course you do.” He turned his head to kiss her chest. “In here.”

She tried to laugh, but her fingers just kept restlessly running through his hair, and her lips couldn’t find the right shape. “My reason isn’t in my heart, and it isn’t a good one.”

“I’d like to hear it anyway.”

“I was afraid. You know that.” Her fingers, without her bidding, fisted in his hair, and she lifted his head up for a fierce kiss. “Fear isn’t a good reason.”

“But it’s the one you had.” He nuzzled her nose with his and kissed her again. “It’s good enough for me. I just wish…”

“There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Then what did I do now to make you less afraid?”

“I’m not any less afraid. Not at all.” She found his hand and squeezed it. “I’m just afraid of different things.”

“I’m afraid, too,” he said, interlacing his fingers through hers. “I’m afraid that human and Votan can’t live peacefully together on this planet. I’m afraid of the world changing even more than it has throughout our lifetimes. But most of all, I’m afraid of losing my only chance at happiness.”

“Oh, Connor.” She sighed. “You would have hundreds of chances at happiness if you’d let yourself.”

He shook his head before settling it back on her shoulder. “No, Amanda. You’re my chance at happiness.”

—

They were running away. Amanda could admit that to herself. How much further away from Defiance could she get and still be within the E-Rep’s purview? But she was doing good. She was more and more sure of that as she spoke to others in Connor’s caravan and as she began to formulate a sense of how things were going in the rest of the world.

She’d focused for so long on one town to the exclusion of the rest of the nation. That was wrong, she saw now.

Leaving Connor behind had been wrong, too.

It was in the way he smiled every time she looked at him now, the way he laughed at her stupidest jokes. The way he carefully combed her hair out of the braid for her so none of the strands caught on each other. The way he told her when she’d had too much to drink, taking care of her when she couldn’t take care of herself. She’d always thought of herself as the one who took care of everyone, never as someone in need of care.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of starting a family with him. She already had the whole rest of the world to take care of. She’d held herself apart, never seeing anyone else as a partner. But Connor was her partner.

Shaking hands in New York, she could see the way people’s eyes flicked to Connor before they returned to her. They knew she wasn’t just a politician to him. But they didn’t know what a politician she was.

She smiled pleasantly at everyone, knowing they wouldn’t see that her true expression was baring her teeth at them in challenge. None of them faced up to that challenge. But then Connor looked at her and gave her a wink, and she knew he could see the real, predatory expression.

New York would be a bigger challenge than Connor had made it out to be. But she loved a challenge. And now she wasn’t planted firmly on two feet, but on four: Connor’s and hers. And she would not fall.


End file.
